Alonso's fastest time on Monday was deleted at the end of the session as he skipped the final chicane in order to get ahead of another vehicle, demoting him from fifth originally to seventh.

Racing director Eric Boullier, who was boss at the Renault-engined Lotus team in 2010-13, also described early progress as "so far, so good". "It's an evolution of last year's engine that won races".

Despite his highly-publicised morning crash generating the most headlines, Fernando Alonso's main takeaway from the opening day of testing was the potential of his Renault-powered McLaren.

"When asked for his thoughts about his off, Alonso said: "[I thought] that it was a good day for you guys [the media]!

"It was a very, very small problem but very graphic and very obvious because a auto in the gravel is a big thing".

"So far, so good", he said. "So I thought about all of you!"

"A vehicle in the gravel makes a big thing", he laughed, "but there is six teams in the garage with the door closed, with the auto in pieces, but there is no picture of that". "Obviously very early days, but the vehicle and engine was running fine".

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